


She Loved Him

by withoutthetiger



Category: Castle
Genre: Angst, Episode Related, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 02:02:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2529917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withoutthetiger/pseuds/withoutthetiger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Months after Castle had quieted her outside the hangar, Kate finds herself in a familiar position. A sequel to He Loved Her, set during "Rise."</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Loved Him

She was second-guessing her decision to bring him back to her apartment; she hated being so unsure of where they stood. Uncertain of whether they could heal after whatever pain they’d inflicted on each other. She knew he noticed the crack in her voice, could see everything she typically kept shuttered behind the intricacies of green-gold eyes. But she couldn’t hide from him anymore.

She loved him.

***

He considered walking away. She was ripped open, right there in the middle of her living room, and it seemed like blessing her with solitude might be the kindest thing to do. But when she insisted that everybody who mattered, good and bad, was gone…when he heard her declaration, meant to be fierce but falling broken from her beautiful mouth, he couldn’t be the next one to leave. He took a step toward her instead.

Everything and nothing had happened between them. After that horrific night at the hangar, when he and Montgomery had each torn her apart in their own ways, things had only become darker. He couldn’t have imagined a more perfect punishment than her disappearance in the months following her shooting. Perhaps it was exactly what he’d deserved, time to atone for his sins.

Now she was within reach, visibly trembling just as she had when he’d pressed her against the car. Too much was the same. The desperation. The questions. The need. He brought his hand up and tucked her hair – so straight now, as if she’d realized it was the one battle she could win – behind her ear, then pulled away before he could spook her.

Her long fingers were wrapped around his wrist in the next second and she sighed in apparent frustration, even as she tugged him closer. She whispered his name and he bowed his head, both of them observing a moment of silence for what might have been.

***

She caught the guilt flash across his face just before he looked downward at the way she gripped him, willing him to understand that she didn’t blame him for any of it. Not their cowardly fight, not his appearance at the hangar, and not the way he’d skipped several chapters of their story to break their hearts and save her life.

Running away for the summer was wrong, but she had come back; if he walked out the door, she wasn’t convinced he’d do the same. One slow blink was enough time to make a decision and she used her free hand to tip his chin back up, to force his tired eyes to meet hers. Then she kissed him, apology and forgiveness in one.

Unwanted tears blurred her vision, but the rest of her senses were heightened when he opened his mouth to her, a reluctant tongue in need of convincing. Their kiss became messy as she dragged him across the room and broke completely when her back hit the wall behind her. She chased it, afraid of losing him for more than that second, driven by something she wasn’t willing to name.

Her bullet wound ached and she pulled him closer, needing the insistent press of his body against hers; a new memory could erase the old. She’d had enough nightmares about it to last a lifetime. Their mouths met again, and she swallowed each one of his doubts as her breathed them into her.

***

He couldn’t do this again, not if it meant another several months apart. Further damage to a relationship that might already be irreparable. He eased away from the kiss and swept his hand over her forehead and down the side of her head, pausing with her soft hair beneath his palm. The motion itself was painfully familiar, and he could only hope that her response was not. He didn’t want to stop.

Her tears had dried almost as soon as they had fallen, his first hint that they might be okay. Then she took a moment to touch her fingers to his lips, her eyes offering reassurance when there was little else to give. They needed to talk, but that wasn’t something they’d ever quite figured out. If they could make it through the night, maybe he’d finally insist.

He felt her clever hands untucking his shirt, cool skin tickling his bare back. She kissed him, slowing considerably so that she could trace the curve of his lips, invite his tongue toward hers. She was both tender and tough and he started to believe that he wasn’t about to destroy her all over again.

He groaned when her hips rocked into his and he knew his choice had been made.

***

She recognized the moment he stopped fighting himself. Fighting her. Fighting _them_. 

His fingers fumbled with the button and zipper on her pants until they allowed enough room for him to roughly push the fabric toward her ankles; she returned the favor without hesitation. The pants were blindly kicked aside with their shoes and she shivered, the chill of the room and breathtaking anticipation making their presence known.

When he slid his hand under the scrap of cotton still covering her, she choked back a sob, afraid that he’d mistake it for the grief that had made her hysterical once before. Yes, she was still suffocated by Montgomery’s betrayal, shackled by her mother’s case, but she needed to escape the dead end that had weakened her just minutes earlier. Her impossible questions would still be there in the morning; if the way she was being touched was any indication, he’d be there, too.

She knew what she was doing was wrong, begging without words, using his love to absolve them both, but then his fingers found her so ready. She caught his whispered curse and encouraged him to continue. And somehow she wasn’t surprised when the mood shifted again.

***

He was angry. He was in love and captivated by the way her body so easily welcomed him and eager to feel more and hungry for her taste and ready to confess and pray and promise, but he was so angry. Angry at the ugly fate that had made their first time such a horrid thing. Angry at himself for not being strong enough to find another way. And angry at her for proving him right when she left.

Biting down on her shoulder through her blouse, he hoped to leave a mark, a temporary reminder of permanent consequences. His fingers moved more demandingly, and she surrendered long enough for the wave of fury to crest and come crashing down around them. When he finally calmed and kissed her again, his love for her more than a bitter thing, she reached between them until her firm stroke could coax them forward.

Together at last, they both gasped with relief. She sucked on his neck as he held himself deep inside her, then keened until he moved again. He gripped her thighs and kept her high against her apartment wall, pulsing, pounding, and determined to leave their shared hell behind them.

***

She felt it in her muscles, pulled taut and mad, and in her bones, aching and empty. Her love for him, so pathetically trapped, looking for some way to be set free. She wrapped her legs around him, clawed at his back, and hoped he would take whatever she couldn’t yet give.

But he seemed almost as lost. Not angry now, but erratic and confused, in need of answers and certainty and a happily ever after. Physically, they were connected. Emotionally, far from it. They hadn’t repaired anything yet and she needed to help them find a way. She sought his mouth again; kisses always worked magic in the fairy tales.

They weren’t living a fairy tale.

Her kisses missed their mark, sloppy and forced. He continued to support her, and she realized that she’d left him to do that for far too long. It was her turn to finally give something back, an acknowledgment of where they were and what they could be. She began to chant softly along his jawline, whispers carried to his ear with each steady thrust.

***

_We’re okay._

_We’re okay._

_We’re okay._

It took him several seconds for her words to fight past whatever demons had embraced him, but he finally stilled and opened his eyes to hers. Two words acting as stitches; thread that closed their wounds, bound them together, and tugged them toward something better. Tangled so roughly against her wall, he hadn’t expected an admission of love, but her careful vow was nearly the same thing.

When he moved again, he found a rhythm he’d thought had been lost months before. They scratched, moaned, teased, and begged, each pushing the other toward the inevitable end, a race neither of them needed to win. They eventually collapsed in a breathless and sweaty mess on the floor, and he brushed her hair away to kiss her temple.

_We’re okay._

***

She had no idea how long they lay there, silent and sated, but she wasn’t about to interrupt the first real peace they’d had since before Montgomery had died. There would be plenty of time to talk later. And one very important thing to say.

She had to tell him that she loved him.


End file.
